A Tear In The Sky - Nimitz/Tic-Tac/Catalina UFO Documentary

illusory pattern perception. or connecting-the-dots.
Could the opposite also be a thing? An urge to disconnect the dots.

I mean, if you send out two jets to a radar target that displayed anomalous behavior, and at merge plot the pilots also observe an object showing anomalous behavior, the dots are connected. At least they would be in any "normal" situation. Imagine the object simply being a small plane, nobody would argue in that case that the radar return was something different.

That does not mean we have solid scientific evidence that the radar return and the visible object were the same, but to say that assuming they are the same is a case of "illusory pattern perception" goes a bit too far in my opinion.
 
hot afternoon downunder and i just watched/endured this on TV,, what bad plot & movie.
Ooh, I remember that one (A Tear in the Sky) although I had forgotten the name. I found it entertaining ...but I was forty years younger at the time! I can't digest woo nearly as well these days.
 
Yes, birds do not locate themselves randomly in space and independently of each other. Which I said already. I do not appreciate having to repeat myself.
I was questioning the motives. Against the rules I know. But I have a substantial problem believing that such an obvious 'mistake' wasn't deliberate.
 
I was questioning the motives. Against the rules I know. But I have a substantial problem believing that such an obvious 'mistake' wasn't deliberate.
Ah, sorry, you were a bit too subtle, internet fora are a terrible place for nuance.

A lie, rather than a mistake, would be a terrible gambit, because the optics upon discovery are even worse.

Then again, are having 0.007 credibility and having 0.000...eighty-six-zeroes...2 credibility really that different from each other?
 
I mean, if you send out two jets to a radar target that displayed anomalous behavior, and at merge plot the pilots also observe an object showing anomalous behavior, the dots are connected. At least they would be in any "normal" situation. Imagine the object simply being a small plane, nobody would argue in that case that the radar return was something different.

That does not mean we have solid scientific evidence that the radar return and the visible object were the same, but to say that assuming they are the same is a case of "illusory pattern perception" goes a bit too far in my opinion.
that isn't the scenario Norcal asked about.
 
A lie, rather than a mistake, would be a terrible gambit, because the optics upon discovery are even worse.
Depends on your target audience, I'd say. IF your target audience were to value a good story that reinforces what they would like to be true, and values it strongly enough, then whether the story is true ,and if not whether this is due to error or mendacity, might not matter too much.
 
The motive doesn't matter from a debunking standpoint and speculating about the motive is counterproductive. It suffices for the debunk to do what FatPhil did and specify in simple terms the error and why that undermines credibility. If such a basic and large error is made then that is enough to undermine the credibility of the story irrespective of why the error was made. Full stop. The why of the error is outside the purview of practical debunking. I'm just frustrated with the repetition of easily debunked UFO and other claims; birds, bugs, light Pilars, etc... where it appears that the creator of the video knew or should have known what they filmed and then the video is passed credulously from person to person until it is featured as something special in mainstream pop culture.
 
I'm just frustrated with the repetition of easily debunked UFO and other claims; birds, bugs, light Pilars, etc... where it appears that the creator of the video knew or should have known what they filmed and then the video is passed credulously from person to person until it is featured as something special in mainstream pop culture.

But then, that's the whole point of the film, isn't it? The creator is a regular on Ancient Aliens. Many of the UAPx guys with legit PhDs are a hell of a lot smarter than me, but they want to believe. They throw out things like the Chilian Air Force sighting, clearly debunked, as yet more evidence of UAPs.

So, when the capture some sort of slightly strange FLIR video, they go straight to "wormhole" as the likely explanation.
 
The motive doesn't matter from a debunking standpoint...
True.
...and speculating about the motive is counterproductive.
I'm not so sure that's true if we are speculating about whether there's a motive. If, say, a person has been known to fake a UFO in the past and gain from it (money, attention), it's going to cause debunkers to take a very hard look at it indeed. I recall someone mentioned on this site who was very clever at making models that, when photographed, were extremely convincing, and that knowledge about the person provides a lead to debunking future presentations by him. I'll see if I can find the reference.

(edit) Aha! The thread is

2007 Costa Rica UFO

 
Update from UAPx, they've Identified two anomalous events as prosaic...

https://www.uapexpedition.org/post/...events-featured-in-the-film-a-tear-in-the-sky

Likely Explanations Uncovered for Two Ambiguities: Laguna Beach / Catalina Expedition

Prof. Matthew Szydagis, UAlbany SUNY
– Probable explanations have been found for two ambiguous events featured in the documentary film A Tear in the Sky, produced by Omnium Media and directed by Caroline Cory. The first is the non-blinking, quiet spheroid shape observed over the city of Avalon on Catalina Island on Wednesday night, July 14, 2021 using night vision goggles. Our research suggests that the object was most likely the ISS (International Space Station) and unrelated to both the object observed in the OSIRIS vehicle later the same night, as well as the collection of cold temperature pixels in the FLIR observed at approximately the same time.

Our second explanation involves the white (false color, meaning hot) streaks called "tic tac rain," which appeared to be small objects falling out of the sky into the water of the Catalina Channel at high velocity. This interpretation is unlikely to be correct, due to extensive discussions with two, independently consulted, Teledyne FLIR camera experts who have reviewed the relevant videos taken during the expedition, involving events occurring at 6:26 and 9:21 am Pacific the morning of Thursday, July 15, 2021. The streaks represent known camera glitches for the model of FLIR used, namely column-correlated temporal noise or simply columnar noise for short. The reason they were not solid offsets for the entire column (looking more like dashes) was due to interactions with other filters.

I for one think this is a welcome development. Getting UAP organisation to find and accept prosaic explanations such as this is a step forward. I cant see the SCU doing the same regarding their Aguadilla investigation.
 
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I for one think this is a welcome development. Getting UAP organisation to find and accept prosaic explanations such as this is a step forward.

Indeed, though the timing does give a bit of a win-win. Cory's film gets to keep showing ambiguous events, keeping up the mystery, while the UAPx folks can preemptively blunt the debunkers if anyone looks to closely.

MY friend often sends me updates about watching the ISS fly overs days in advance. There is several apps for tracking it. The UAPx people are aware of sites like Metabunk and they mention Mick by name. I would have to think at least some of them are aware that the ISS has figured in various claims of UAP sightings, right?

And yet, it's taken them nearly 6 months since the release of the film to realize they were filming the ISS? That's just the time from the film coming out. As this is presented in the film, they were clearly looking at it during the making of the film, so even longer ago. It would seem that ISS is something like a tracked commercial flight and near the top of the list of possible things to eliminate first. It's known to be mistaken for a UAP and is easily tracked.

From watching their YouTube presentation and reading Szydagis' article, the way they throw old cases around as if they are completely factual seems to foster a UAP first conclusion about much of what they see in the sky. Only later is it reluctantly investigated.
 
From watching their YouTube presentation and reading Szydagis' article, the way they throw old cases around as if they are completely factual seems to foster a UAP first conclusion about much of what they see in the sky. Only later is it reluctantly investigated.
Hopefully these prosaic discoveries will help tilt them away from that somewhat.

UAPx has an interesting history, being formed by people involved in the Nimitz incident. Seemingly both as a kind of personal interest and validation, and also with the idea of financially capitalizing on the attention they were getting. It's been though quite a variety of team members and proposed projects since inception, but does seem still have a pro-anomalous bias.
 
They have finally published a paper on the expedition and the "Tear in the Sky"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042125000259
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Abstract

In July 2021, faculty from the UAlbany Department of Physics participated in a week-long field expedition with the organization UAPx to collect data on UAPs in Avalon, California, located on Catalina Island, and nearby. This paper reviews both the hardware and software techniques which this collaboration employed, and contains a frank discussion of the successes and failures, with a section about how to apply lessons learned to future expeditions. Both observable-light and infrared cameras were deployed, as well as sensors for other (non-EM) emissions. A pixel-subtraction method was augmented with other similarly simple methods to provide initial identification of objects in the sky and/or the sea crossing the cameras' fields of view. The first results will be presented based upon approximately one hour in total of triggered visible/night-vision-mode video and over 600 h of untriggered (far) IR video recorded, as well as 55 h of (background) radiation measurements. Following multiple explanatory resolutions of several ambiguities that were potentially anomalous at first, we focus on the primary remaining ambiguity captured at approximately 4am Pacific Time on Friday, July 16: a dark spot in the visible/near-IR camera possibly coincident with ionizing radiation that has so far resisted prosaic explanation. We conclude with quantitative suggestions (3–5σ rules) for serious researchers in the still-maligned field of hard-science-based UAP studies, with an ultimate goal of identifying UAPs without confirmation bias toward mundane/speculative conclusions.
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7. Conclusion

UAPx mounted an expedition in July of 2021 to a (suspected) UAP hot-spot with UAlbany SUNY physicists. Exotic ideas like UAP radiation were entertained, balanced by a strenuous pursuit of skepticism. With one possible exception, ambiguous observations ended up being identifiable. At this point, none can be classified as true anomalies, although further study of remaining ambiguities may alter this conclusion. The greatest successes from this work included equipment stress-testing in the field and creation of new software of broad applicability, the only one of its kind for IR to the best of the authors' knowledge, fusing human-driven QA with interpretable AI/ML, not relying mainly on one or the other, for UAP work. Our valuable lessons apply to any future field work, conducted by us, our contemporaries, or future scientists.
We recommend at least two of each type of sensor, and 2+ distinct sensor types. The most significant new recommendations made for this growing field were those for establishing quantitative rigor in the definition of ambiguities vs. anomalies. Our results so far are best labeled "null", but science's history teaches us the value of such results [93], and of robust eliminative deduction. Any new excursions, to Catalina for reproducibility, and/or elsewhere (such as to Yakima [94], [95]), must include improvements to equipment/methods, recognizing others' past work.
 

Attachments

They have finally published a paper on the expedition and the "Tear in the Sky"
That's an interesting read! I've skipped the sections on their tech setup, but there are a few things maybe worth following up on.

The main weaknesses of the paper seem to me:
1) they're taking historical UFO reports for facts that are anything but,
2) their banner anomaly happens when much of their equipment is offline (because the film team needs the power)

Excerpts and comments:
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UAP can stand for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon or Phenomena, although the A can also stand for Aerial/Aerospace; UAP was recently redefined by the U.S. Congress as Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena.
I wasn't aware that there's a third meaning for "UAP" now.
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UAP have come to their attention as an old, global air-safety risk at least [8,9].
I'm standing by my opinion that UAP are no air safety risk. Airports are cautious when they notice flying objects in their airspace, because these mundane flying objects can pose a risk to aviation, whether they're identified or not. That's why you need to be in contact with the FAA/air traffic control before you fly anything near an airport.
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[8] Á. Escolà-Gascón, N. Dagnall, A. Denovan, K. Drinkwater, Impact of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) on air safety: Evidence from Airbus® TCAS / ROSE simulators, J. Air Transp. Manag. (ISSN: 0969-6997) 119 (2024) 102617, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2024.102617 , URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699724000826 .
[9] C. Siegert, Report on unidentifiable visual and radar sightings East Coast south island, AIR 2 (1 and 2) (December 1978-79) 8,9, URL https://archive.org/details/NewZealandUFO/AIR-39-3-3-Volume-2-Parts-1-and-2-1956-1979/ .
That said, these references may be worth following up, perhaps in a separate thread on UAP and air traffic safety. I've posted before on the threat posed by untethered balloons (2 crashes ever), and on the threat posed by birds and other animals.
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There is little doubt that the majority of UAP are misidentifications, but anywhere between 4%–40% remain unidentified after careful investigations [10–14], depending upon the sources and quality of the reports. Despite this, there exist hard data that demonstrate unreasonably high speeds (above Mach 40-60) and accelerations (thousands of times g) [15–20], without corresponding sonic booms or fireballs.
Such observations represent cases of interest as they support the more exotic hypotheses, requiring novel physics or at least new engineering; but, more data are needed to characterize fast-moving objects and definitively rule out observational errors [21].
I don't think the claim "there exist hard data" is well-supported. The references are mostly overviews:
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[15] H. Oberth, Lecture notes for lecture about flying saucers, 1954, URL http://knuthlab.org/library/0berth-1954.pdf .
[16] P.R. Hill, R.M. Wood, D. Donderi, Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis, Hampton Roads, 1995.
[17] C. Poher, Analysis of radar and air-visual UFO observations on 24 Oct 1968 at Minot AFB, North Dakota, USA, 2005, URL https://explorescu.org/post/analysi...24-october-1968-at-minot-afb-north-dakota-usa . (Accessed 08 September 2019).
[18] P.R. Hill, Unconventional Flying Objects: A Former NASA Scientist Explains How UFOs Really Work, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2014.
[19] K.H. Knuth, R.M. Powell, P.A. Reali, Estimating flight characteristics of anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles, Entropy 21 (10) (2019) 939.
[20] D. Coumbe, Anomaly. A Scientific Exploration of the UFO Phenomenon, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanhman MD, 2022.
[21] A. Loeb, S. Kirkpatrick, Physical Constaints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, 2023, URL https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/LK1.pdf. (Accessed 31 October 2023).
We have a thread on Minot that could use more attention: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/can-the-minot-afb-report-be-debunked.11748/ though elsewhere @NorCal Dave points out that 1966 was a UFO flap year, and that may explain the coinciding witness reports, without resorting to the unproven assumption that all of the reports pertain to the same object. Our experience with the drone flap last winter highlights the likelihood of these sorts of misidentifications when people are looking for these things. The only "hard data" in the Minot case are 14 radarscope photos, the rest is witness statements.

I don't remember seeing the [21] Loeb/Kirkpatrick paper referenced, have we discussed this here? It surprises me that there was a cooperation. [Edit: we have a short dedicated thread on it, and it was discussed in a more recent thread as well.]

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Many different phenomena are likely being included under the UAP umbrella. Heretofore non-discovered or sparsely studied atmospheric phenomena may be involved e.g. ball lightning [22,23] or earthquake lights [24–26]. Both of those have been considered ''pseudoscience'', despite well-documented observations to the contrary [27].
Here's what the USGS has to say about the "well-documented" earthquake lights:
Article:
Phenomena such as sheet lightning, balls of light, streamers, and steady glows, reported in association with earthquakes are called earthquake lights (EQL). Geophysicists differ on the extent to which they think that individual reports of unusual lighting near the time and epicenter of an earthquake actually represent EQL: some doubt that any of the reports constitute solid evidence for EQL, whereas others think that at least some reports plausibly correspond to EQL. Physics-based hypotheses have been proposed to explain specific classes of EQL reports, such as those in the immediate vicinity of the causative fault at the time of a major earthquake. On the other hand, some reports of EQL have turned out to be associated with electricity arcing from the power lines shaking.

We have discussed this here on Metabunk: Mexico, Sakurajima, Costa Rica.

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Scientists collaborating with UAPx constitute a wide range of differing expertise and informed opinions; they strive for an introspective self-skepticism, aiming for the difficult balance between openness to speculative ideas on the one hand [37], versus a debunking posture on the other, aimed exclusively at explaining all ambiguities as part of known phenomena regardless of context.
I'd characterize the "debunking posture" as being adverse to presenting speculative ideas for serious consideration when the evidence does not support it. I would call this a scientific approach.
I'd say the opposite approach is aimed at finding ambiguities, with explanations as an inconvenience.
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A reason for two (or more) observation locations in the same general area is to have multiple, unique vantage points for the same UAP in an encounter. Another is to avoid past criticisms of one poor-quality image in one camera. If sites are close to one another but sufficiently separated, i.e., far beyond the position resolution of the measuring devices (but still near the hotspot, unlike [46]), triangulation is feasible, as attempted by Maccabee [47]. While this was vigorously pursued, the first expedition did not succeed in such data fusion. Due to the expense of transport of bulky materials, it was not practical for islanders (communicating via phones only) to have anything more than NV (two pairs). We suggest having only practical, identical setups going forward.
We've long held that triangulation capability is very desirable in UFO observations, because a great many misidentifications stem from errors in estimating the distance to the observed phenomenon, if it's not a camera artifact altogether. It is disappointing to learn that this project was aware of this, but did not achieve it for their banner "anomaly".
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UAPx uses a diverse set of devices to capture different types of data on many channels. The strategy of the UAPx/UAlbany collaboration involves:
1. Acquiring and commissioning multiple cameras and multiple copies of other sensors, to capture the same phenomenon from different angles, at high resolution, for robust estimations of distance, size, speed, and acceleration by triangulation, possible via precise unit locations [48].
2. Coincidence timing across all devices to help in a faster data reduction resulting in lists of ambiguities and true ''anomalies''.
[...]
Basically what they did was to use multiple cameras in "trail cam" mode, recording only when motion was detected, and cosmic radiation sensors, and consider only the data from events that were observed by multiple sensors.
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3.3. Radiation detection
Some documented UAP encounters involve apparent harm from ionizing radiation, e.g. the Cash-Landrum [36] and Rendlesham Forest [73] incidents.
I wasn't aware that Rendlesham involved harm (or, in fact, radiation exceeding the normal background). I don't know anything about Cash-Landrum. Maybe that's a claim we could examine in a separate thread? I believe there's a case (likely hoax) that actually did involve radioactive isotopes added to a "landing site", and also cases of unsubstantiated claims of "radiation burns".

I like the following section, not only because "lessons learned" always means "what went wrong", but because it sets a high-profile bar for future projects—they have no excuse for falling short.
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4. Laguna/Catalina expedition: Successes and lessons learned

While several observations were at least initially intriguing, the primary purpose of the initial outing, in retrospect, was an effective field testing of all the equipment and analysis techniques, even though it had novel facets, such as a Cosmic Watch for coincident particle detection, novel software (C-TAP, similar to what was presented in [55] but for FLIR), and the first time UAP seekers capitalized on Doppler radar (Section 5.1.1). Lessons learned included:
  • • The UFODAP hardware should be of sufficiently high quality to serve as scientific instrumentation, but its software is not reliable for object tracking and identification, nor is the software capable of accessing the MSDAU (Multi-Sensor Data Acquisition Unit), the name given to the non-optical sensor collection, and as a result no ancillary data, such as GPS location and ADS-B exchange, were recorded.
  • • Tracking just aircraft, via transponders, is not sufficient. It is also necessary to have apps showing maps of satellites (especially Starlink, often mistaken for UAP), all known rocket launches, and the ISS' trajectory. (See Appendix A for a quantitative study of our ISS observation.)
  • • Multiple identical cameras are still a necessity, even if others can supplement the UFODAP like FLIR, all with sufficient (12-hour+) battery backups.
  • • Having many FLIR cameras was not as beneficial as originally expected. They generated a large quantity of data which were not of the highest quality and challenging to analyze within a reasonable timeframe given limited personpower/CPUs. Instead, fewer, more modern, and better calibrated units would be optimal, as per Section 3.4(A.) Any connector must be RF-shielded (with metal) against stray EM noise.
  • • All clocks must be synchronized, ideally at the sub-sec. level, and device positions recorded using a combination of GPS with a laser range finder. Working with a film crew, necessary for our seed funding, created distractions which led to these, and other, critical steps being neglected. One can imagine that the researchers who have at times labored under similar conditions have been affected in similar ways [86,87].
Lastly, more than two Cosmic Watches running in coincidence mode allow for a reduced background rate as well as rudimentary directionality. Alternatively, separation of a pair outside the typical diameter of cosmic-ray showers results in a greatly reduced background, permitting any anomalies to be more obvious. It is important to note, however, that due to secondary particle production from GeV-TeV muons, shielding will increase the background rate.
Now here's the big one:
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5. Example observations and preliminary results
5.1. UFODAP: Its titular ambiguity

The UFODAP system ultimately made a detection that remains the expedition's most intriguing ambiguity. Multiple camera ambiguities (multiple videos close by in time on the minute scale) were discovered, but neither live via visual observation by a team member, nor in a systematic review of the recordings by person or software. These ambiguities were discovered through a systematic review of the Cosmic Watch data, because they appear to be associated, at least temporally, with the highest-energy event measured in the Cosmic Watch, by itself not necessarily anomalous, as explained in Sections 3.3 and 5.2. While there were potentially corroborative same-camera videos, no second camera made an observation which could have settled the crucial question of: internal to the UFODAP or external? The FLIR cameras, some pointed in the same direction, were not active at the time due to the power needs of film equipment.

This is a timeline for Friday 07/16/21, in PDT:
  • • 3:50:14am. A ''blank'' video .. without an obvious trigger condition
  • • 3:57:16. A diffuse dark spot appears at upper right. Its appearance may have triggered the UFODAP. It has no well-defined edge (Appendix C).
  • • 3:57:27. The spot remains; the camera slews, chasing an insect separate from it. During rotation, white dots that turn into black streaks appear, emanating from this spot. Note that the spot is not visible in the later frames where the background sky is well-illuminated. (See Appendix C.)
  • • 3:59:24. The camera is again stationary and the dots are visible within the spot for the entire video's length, though the spot vanishes (lightens to match the surrounding gray cloud color) and a new white dot appears in frame 13 where the spot was located, along with a new black dot, in a different region. Frames from every video are in Appendix C (at full res and zoomable) but those from this one most important video in Fig. 5. The transient nature of our dots is not inconsistent with [2,30], and they may be part of a significant larger background of objects [60].
  • • 04:00:13am. The first ''normal'' video after the incident. This video and all of those above were quite short (a few seconds each at the most).

We evaluate ten prosaic (''null'') hypotheses put forth both inside/outside our group. Our list is an attempt at completeness, for ruling out or in, even though that is never fully practical. (However, in this case and in others, UAP cannot just ''be anything'', a common phrase used in debunking.)
  • 1. Fall-streak hole from aircraft, with the white dots the aircraft, or noise (or: natural cloud formation, Fig. 6, least improbable by elimination)
  • 2. A star field or seagull flock producing white dots, as viewed through a hole in the clouds, the dark spot, either a natural or fall-streak hole
  • 3. Water drop evaporating, evident as a spot slowly decreasing in area
  • 4. Fly on the protective dome leaving, evident as a spot suddenly gone
  • 5. Cosmic-ray shower, where ionization lights up CMOS pixel clusters
  • 6. Meteor breaking up or meteor shower: fragments of a single meteor or multiple meteors showing up as dots, and making a hole in the clouds
  • 7. Camera noise in the dark environment, possibly combined with a residual effect (algorithmic artifact) from the camera rotation earlier — this explains white dots and streaks, but not the dark spot, or its fade-out.
  • 8. Resetting of camera levels for a lightening sky, which should manifest as a change in pixel intensities across an entire image (dynamic scaling)
  • 9. Military testing tied to a nearby base and/or training area of operation, where the white dots are e.g. a drone cluster, creating a hole (1)
  • 10. The reflection of lights in the camera dome from the nearby cities leading to white dots, inside of a water drop for instance (Hypothesis 3).
Note that having two or more cameras (e.g., the fisheye or one active FLIR) could have eliminated hypotheses 3, 4, 7, 8, and 10, leaving only five (external) explanations and greatly facilitating assessment of observations.
I would note that having two cameras could also have eliminated hypotheses 1, 2, 5, 6 and 9, and made the "anomaly" a non-event. The note in the paper reveals bias.

Ultimately, the footage is only special because the two cosmic radiation sensors triggered at roughly the same time.
 
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I'm standing by my opinion that UAP are no air safety risk. Airports are cautious when they notice flying objects in their airspace, because these mundane flying objects can pose a risk to aviation, whether they're identified or not. That's why you need to be in contact with the FAA/air traffic control before you fly anything near an airport.
My opinion is that UAP are indeed a safety of flight risk because of the resultant distraction, confusion and disorientation of pilots (see the many starlink flares/"Racetrack UAP" cases). They may also cause unwarranted evasive manoeuvres that can be violent and cause injury to crew and passengers.

https://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/17/travel/canada-disoriented-pilot
1747644635252.png

The various UAP-advocacy groups & individuals seem to avoid this stance as it suggests that pilots are fallible, make mistakes and have a gap in their knowledge. We only hear of the risk of 'collision' or 'equipment interference', never the fact that most UAP reports are misidentifications of prosaic objects. This is only fostering the stigma that pilots experience when reporting UAPs, but the stigma comes from within their own community as well as from outside. However in my experience pilots and aircrew are usually open to learning about what happened during flights - just look at the military aircrews' regular and often harsh 'post mission debriefs'. They take flight safety very seriously and want to learn from every flight/mission/event/experience . This hazard/risk is something that could be easily mitigated through training and education as to what starlink flares, the ISS, rocket-launches etc look like.

https://www.safeaerospace.org/

We hear a lot that we have to remove the stigma associated with pilots reporting UAP - I agree. But we also need to remove the stigma associated with pilots (and everyone else) sometimes being wrong.
 
My opinion is that UAP are indeed a safety of flight risk because of the resultant distraction, confusion and disorientation of pilots (see the many starlink flares/"Racetrack UAP" cases). They may also cause unwarranted evasive manoeuvres that can be violent and cause injury to crew and passengers.

https://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/17/travel/canada-disoriented-pilot
I'd love to see a valid example.

The planet Venus was not at fault in this example.
Article:
At that time another aircraft was enroute in opposite direction at FL340 and appeared on the Boeing's TCAS display. The captain adjusted his navigation display while the first officer attempted to acquire visual contact with the traffic but mistook planet Venus for the aircraft until the captain pointed out the aircraft was at 12 o'clock and 1000 feet below.
The main reason identified in the accident report was that the FO was very sleepy. The misidentification was momentary and did not contribute to the accident.

The Starlink flare sightings are always reported as being far away, and I've not heard them considered as threats. When a jet is at cruise altitude on autopilot, it's understandable that pilots get curious about strange lights they see, but it's unlikely to affect their flight.

This hazard/risk is something that could be easily mitigated through training and education as to what starlink flares, the ISS, rocket-launches etc look like.
https://www.safeaerospace.org/
Has ASA's track record improved on these issues?

Graves' business is selling UAP as threats so that the US will invest money in UFO research.
Graves on the New Jersey drone flap: Graves concluded his analysis leads the mystery to "foreign adversaries or something else." ( https://www.foxnews.com/media/forme...ors-doubts-fed-involvement-nj-drone-sightings )
Unidentified objects in defended airspace represent a domain awareness gap. This gap poses a clear and present danger to pilots and our soldiers that is more acute than ever. ( https://thehill.com/opinion/nationa...advanced-uap-pose-a-clear-and-present-danger/ )
But there is zero evidence of this danger.

The dangers we know of is a) birds, b) powerlines, kites, and other obstacles that snag helicopters, c) drones in controlled airspace or TFRs (maybe). Identifying these makes a lot of sense.

But selling UAP as a danger or a threat does not. There's simply no evidence for it.
 
I'd love to see a valid example.
11 NOV 1979,
A flight going from Palma de Mallorca to Tenerife, made an emergency landing in Manises airport (Valencia) due to the perceived risk of a collision with a UFO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manises_UFO_incident
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Halfway through the flight, at about 23:00, Pilot Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada and his crew noticed a set of red lights that were fast approaching the aircraft. These lights appeared to be on a collision course with the aircraft, alarming the crew. The captain requested information about the inexplicable lights, but neither the military radar of Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) nor the flight control center in Barcelona could provide any explanation for this phenomenon.

In order to avoid a possible collision, the captain changed altitude. However, the lights mirrored the new course and stayed about half a kilometer away from the plane. Since the object was violating all elementary safety rules and an evasive maneuver was deemed impossible by the crew, the captain decided on going off-course and made an emergency landing in Manises' airport. This was the first time in history in which a commercial flight was forced to make an emergency landing because of a UFO.
The military file (https://bibliotecavirtual.defensa.g...do?path=102238&posicion=1&registrardownload=1) contains the transcription of the conversations between the pilot and the air traffic controller. The pilot repeatedly insists during several minutes to get permission to change his course and land in Valencia. In the original audios, you can also hear the pilot is very nervous. Although it is not really clear from the transcriptions or audios whether the final maneuver was actually dangerous, the pilot testifies he made a "divergent right turn" and then "descended at 5000 feet/min", which I feel is somewhat not usual.

I agree the UFO's are not a risk by themselves. But it is the reaction of the pilots what can endanger the flight.
 
11 NOV 1979,
A flight going from Palma de Mallorca to Tenerife, made an emergency landing in Manises airport (Valencia) due to the perceived risk of a collision with a UFO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manises_UFO_incident
Thank you for this example.
I have 2 questions:
1) Is there anything current UAP research could contribute that would have made this incident play out differently?
2) What would have happened if instead, the pilot had been convinced that what he saw was probably an illusion and not a threat?

Pilots with an instrument rating have already learned to distrust their sense of direction. They need to learn that a strange light is unlikely to be a threat, especially if it does not look like another aircraft.

5000 fpm qualifies as emergency descent, but it looks like the aircraft was actually safe during this time.

I think making pilots afraid of UAP by labeling them as threats is more likely to produce errors than to provide the knowledge that they're harmless.
 
Thank you for this example.
I have 2 questions:
1) Is there anything current UAP research could contribute that would have made this incident play out differently?

What kind of research? The ones stating that UAPs are real things, or the ones that tries to identify the stimulus that was misinterpreted?
The first one, as you say, I think may contribute to alarm pilots. So, I guess the incident may have happened the same.

I think pilots could be taught about these cases and their [demonstrated or probable] explanations. It may contribute to make them aware that they can also be confused and try to keep calm when something unexpected occurs. Could this have prevented the incident? I don't know. The problem with UAP/UFOs is that they are unexpected, and each time there may be a different cause. You can't warn about ALL possible causes. I guess all you can do is teach them to keep calm to try to assess the situation correctly.


2) What would have happened if instead, the pilot had been convinced that what he saw was probably an illusion and not a threat?
If you mean he realized it was an illusion before changing direction and continued to Tenerife, in that case we wouldn't have the most debated case in Spain. Maybe another boring case of some distant unidentified lights, with 1-2 pages of a military file with a poor investigation. It wouldn't have triggered the sighting of more strange lights from the airport after the plane landed, and a fighter wouldn't have been scrambled in pursuit of the lights, that was later jammed by some (yet unknown) warship. And the government wouldn't have been questioned about the case in the parliament. (It was quite a night.)


If you mean he was convinced after he landed, some hours/days/months/years later, we would have the same UFO case with an extra of men-in-black conspiracy, I guess.

I think making pilots afraid of UAP by labeling them as threats is more likely to produce errors than to provide the knowledge that they're harmless.
Agree.
 
What kind of research? The ones stating that UAPs are real things, or the ones that tries to identify the stimulus that was misinterpreted?
The kind of research that we're discussing in this thread.
Their paper is mostly silent on the observations that turned out to be mundane.
 
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and/or elsewhere (such as to Yakima [94], [95]), must include improvements to equipment/methods, recognizing others' past work.
Yakima? That's a UFO hotspot?
 
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and/or elsewhere (such as to Yakima [94], [95]), must include improvements to equipment/methods, recognizing others' past work.
Yakima? That's a UFO hotspot?
Any place that becomes, or can be made, aware enough of UFOs to LOOK at the sky can became a UFO hot spot, since there are things a bit too far away to tell what they are pretty much everywhere.

Note the ease with which places other than NJ became "drone" hot spots once people went outside to see if they could see any drones... and wouldn't you know it, if you expect to see drones, you will see lights in the night sky that you cannot otherwise identify, so they must be these drones you've been hearing about, even if other people who have spent a little more time outside looking up recognize them as planes!
 
Any place that becomes, or can be made, aware enough of UFOs to LOOK at the sky can became a UFO hot spot, since there are things a bit too far away to tell what they are pretty much everywhere.

Note the ease with which places other than NJ became "drone" hot spots once people went outside to see if they could see any drones... and wouldn't you know it, if you expect to see drones, you will see lights in the night sky that you cannot otherwise identify, so they must be these drones you've been hearing about, even if other people who have spent a little more time outside looking up recognize them as planes!

Agreed, but the way this UAPx search was set up because of the proximity to where the TicTak happened, I was thinking there is something about Yakima that offers similar consideration. And if so, it's not something I'm aware of. Although, Patterson, Gimlin, and Hironimous as well as the horses like Peanut, that were involved in the Bigfoot film were all from the Yakima area. The film was first shown in Yakima, sooo......
 
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UAP can stand for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon or Phenomena, although the A can also stand for Aerial/Aerospace; UAP was recently redefined by the U.S. Congress as Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena.
I wasn't aware that there's a third meaning for "UAP" now.
The expression "Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena" was used in the FY23 Intelligence Authorization Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th...3/text#toc-id20B9163D7BAD4D849D305B40AB90F1D0) where the proposed office to replace UAPTF would be called Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office, but in the final FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress went with All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and kept the definition of UAP from the previous FY22 NDAA, just replacing "aerial" with "anomalous", which is essentially the same as 50 USC 3373(n)(8) today. Not sure why they mentioned the intermediate expression "Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena" in the paper, since the FY23 NDAA definition covers that meaning and is what was actually adopted.

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(c) Annual Reports.--Section 1683 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (50 U.S.C. 3373) is amended--
(1) by striking ``aerial'' each place it appears and inserting ``anomalous'';
[...]

(d) Definitions.--In this section: [...]
(6) The term ``Office'' means the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office established pursuant to section 1683(a) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (50 U.S.C. 3373(a)). [...]
(8) The term ``unidentified anomalous phenomena'' has the meaning given such term in section 1683(n) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (50 U.S.C. 3373(l)).
Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/7776/text (FY23 NDAA)

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(l) Definitions.--In this section: [...]
(5) The term ``unidentified aerial phenomena'' means--
(A) airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable;
(B) transmedium objects or devices; and
(C) submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting that the objects or devices may be related to the objects or devices described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1605/text (FY22 NDAA)

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(8) Unidentified anomalous phenomena
The term "unidentified anomalous phenomena" means-
(A) airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable;
(B) transmedium objects or devices; and
(C) submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting that the objects or devices may be related to the objects described in subparagraph (A).
Source: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml...=granuleid:USC-2022-title50-section3373&num=0 (50 USC 3373(n)(8))
 
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and/or elsewhere (such as to Yakima [94], [95]), must include improvements to equipment/methods, recognizing others' past work.
Yakima? That's a UFO hotspot?
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[94] D. Akers, Preliminary report on Magnetic Field Measurements Recorded at Satus Fire Lookout, 2001, URL https://www.researchgate.net/public...RECORDED_AT_SATUS_FIRE_LOOKOUT_-_JULY_11_2001 . (Accessed 15 October 2023).
[95] D. Akers, The Toppenish Field Study: A Technical Review and Update, 2007, URL https://cufos.org/about-us/cufos-board-consultants-and-friends/david-akers/ , Paper presented at the 7th Biennial European SSE Meeting
Toppenish and Satus are southeast of Yakima, on the Yakama reservation. Neither paper is online.
Article:
A twelve-hour magnetometer recording made at the Satus Fire Lookout on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington, USA, revealed many, 30 mS to 15 S wide magnetic pulses of unknown origin. The characteristics of the pulses suggest that they are of mechanical origin, because of their highly patterned symmetry and amplitude characteristics. The nature of the data and history of the study area further suggest that the pulses may be related to electromagnetic disturbances seen in connection with the appearance of various Anomalous Luminous Phenomena (ALP). The data show similarities to electromagnetic measurements made by ALP researchers in other geographical locations. Since no ALP observations were made during the recording period, there is still the possibility that the source of the pulses may be the result of unknown human activities. This preliminary report discusses the data recorded and presents the results of initial analysis of the data set.
No UAPs were observed, and the abstract does not mention any control observations.

But the Catalina investigation did adopt the methodology, reasoning that if both their cosmic radiation sensors triggered, it would indicate UAP activity, based on ... well, wishful thinking, as far as I can tell.

It's tooth fairy science, like talking about the electromagnetic signals of UFOs you couldn't establish were even there.
 
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And if so, it's not something I'm aware of. Although, Patterson, Gimlin, and Hironimous as well as the horses like Peanut, that were involved in the Bigfoot film were all from the Yakima area. The film was first shown in Yakima, sooo......
The Patterson/Gimlin film is from 1967.
Article:
Akers has been actively involved in the investigation and analysis of UAP reports and acquisition of physical measurements of the phenomena since 1967

(I expect Akers' 1972 paper reveals why he chose Toppenish. Or you could contact him via CUFOS and ask.)
 
They have finally published a paper on the expedition and the "Tear in the Sky"
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UAP have come to their attention as an old, global air-safety risk at least [8,9].

[9] C. Siegert, Report on unidentifiable visual and radar sightings East Coast south island, AIR 2 (1 and 2) (December 1978-79) 8,9, URL https://archive.org/details/NewZealandUFO/AIR-39-3-3-Volume-2-Parts-1-and-2-1956-1979/ .
This refers to the Kaikura Lights, see https://www.metabunk.org/threads/kaikoura-lights.12064/

From their source:
SmartSelect_20250521-094808_Samsung Internet.jpg

SmartSelect_20250521-095232_Samsung Internet.jpg

Neither squid boats nor Venus pose an "air-safety risk". The source does not support the idea that any of the aircraft involved were at risk at any time.

(Two pages later, a second report argues, among other things, that a comprehensive air defense system for New Zealand would be a waste of money, since there's nobody who would attack New Zealand by air.)
 
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[8] Á. Escolà-Gascón, N. Dagnall, A. Denovan, K. Drinkwater, Impact of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) on air safety: Evidence from Airbus® TCAS / ROSE simulators, J. Air Transp. Manag. (ISSN: 0969-6997) 119 (2024) 102617, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2024.102617 , URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699724000826 .
This is very interesting, unfortunately I don't have access to the full article. (It may become "available on: 8 December 2025" at https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/634841/ .)
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The present research was designed to provide evidence into why and when Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) occur and pose a threat to aviation safety. Specifically, the goal was to understand how causal illusions interact with perceptual biases with and without irrational reasoning. A total of 408 airline pilots participated in an experiment using Airbus® aircraft TCAS/ROSE simulators. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM), controlling for the effects of fatigue and flight hours. Results indicated that causal illusions were 82.4% predictive of UAP sightings only when magical inference was present. Our experimental evidence shows that UAPs may be explained as cognitive biases and would pose a threat to aviation safety if pilots—or even aircraft AIs—were to detect them in an irrational way (e.g., as alien objects). A novel theorization that integrates major perception, clinical, and cognition models is offered. Additionally, the authors discuss the implications for aviation safety and determine when a UAP sighting may pose a real danger on a commercial flight.
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Therefore, in this research we use the term UAPs to refer to aerial anomalies without magical (extraterrestrial) attribution and the acronym UFO denotes aerial anomalies that are magically interpreted as extraterrestrial beings.
Causal illusions consist of believing that there is a causal relationship between events that are actually unrelated.

As far as I understand, magical inference relates to inferring characteristics based on belief: for example, someone sees a light in the sky, turns away for a second, and when they look again, the light is gone. If they believe they saw a UFO, they might infer "the object noiselessly zipped away at high speed", even though there is no evidence of it, because that'd be the only way the UFO could disappear so quickly.
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There are three main theoretical models to explain and understand the etiology of anomalous perceptions. [...] The continuum model of psychosis would regard UFO and UAP sightings as hallucinations of the perceiving individual. [...]

The second model—the semiotic model of perception [..]—is not clinical and is based on the assumption that environmental stimuli with poorly defined formal characteristics (e.g., a shadow) tend to distort perception, causing the subject to misrecognize what the original stimulus is and what it looks like [..]. In this model, UAPs have material embodiment and would be explainable. However, the stimulus would have formal characteristics that would be incompletely perceived and could generate mistaken inferences about what the perceived object is [..].

[..] Therefore, within this approach, the individual would recognize the stimulus by the mental representation they would make of it according to their belief system and not by the perceived formal characteristics only [..]. This is the logic that defines the theory of causal illusions—they manifest themselves in the form of causal inference from a specific belief and not from the formal or physical features, or both, of the perceived stimulus [..]. Thus, it is causal inference from beliefs that may or may not coincide with the formal features of the stimulus that defines perceptual alteration in this model [..].
As I understand it, the first could be someone being fatigued and seeing something that's not there.
An example for the second: "The black hole illusion, sometimes called the featureless terrain illusion, fools pilots into thinking they are higher than they actually are" ( https://skybrary.aero/articles/night-visual-approaches ).
An example of the third would be seeing 3 lights on IR footage and inferring that it's a triangular UFO, where "it's a UFO" is the belief, and the perception that it's a triangular object (rather than 3 birds, or an airliner with 3 visible lights) comes from that belief.

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There is ample evidence linking magical beliefs (e.g., that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin) to causal illusions [..]. Considering this, measuring causal illusions would allow the estimation of the degree to which a person develops magical beliefs and vice versa [..]. We can then also pose the following question: to what degree do causal illusions predict perceptions of UAPs sightings with and without the inference that they are aliens (i.e., UFOs)?
I think they're wondering whether people who jump to conclusions are more likely to perceive "aerial anomalies" as UFOs.
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However, assessing causal illusions in pilots and UAP sightings is also crucial for aircraft accident prevention [..]; a causal illusion is an inference error, and poor perceptual decisions during the piloting of an aircraft can have catastrophic consequences [..].
That's basically the point that @flarkey was making above.

The abstract suggests to me that this is more likely to happen to pilots who believe in UFOs (i.e. that UAPs are actually flying threats). (But I'd want to read the full paper to be certain I haven't misunderstood this.)

The Catalina paper claims, "UAP have come to their attention as an old, global air-safety risk at least [8,9]." But the paper they're citing suggests that it's not the UAPs themselves that constitute the air safety risk, but rather pilots who react to them irrationally.

In the Swiss Cheese model of air safety, the unusual sighting is one hole in one slice, and a pilot's belief in UFOs (even if they're named UAP) is the second hole in another slice: if they align, bad things can happen. It's best to have pilots who don't believe in UFOs.

This means that any kind of messaging that implies unknown things are flying in our airspace and pose a threat to aviation is actually reducing aerospace safety.

My prediction is that any aviation accident that involves UAP also involves a pilot who believes in UFOs aka "UAP threats".
 
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(Two pages later, a second report argues, among other things, that a comprehensive air defense system for New Zealand would be a waste of money, since there's nobody who would attack New Zealand by air.)
If New Zealand were ever threatened by air, they would have the full weight of the RAAF behind them.

Source: https://www.minister.defence.gov.au...land-joint-statement-closer-defence-relations

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Australia - New Zealand Joint Statement on Closer Defence Relations

6 December 2024

The alliance between Australia and New Zealand remains closer than ever, tightly bound by our shared history, deep people-to-people links, and common values. Our security partnership was founded in the days of the first ANZACs, with this spirit continuing to enliven our modern alliance. The formal expression of our alliance is found in the 1944 Canberra Pact, the 1951 ANZUS Treaty and through various Australia – New Zealand Joint Statements on Closer Defence Relations, instigated in 1991 and last updated in 2018.

As friends, family and formal allies, we have a mutual commitment to support each other's security, and to act together to advance the security of our region. History proves we are more resilient when we stand side by side, including fighting alongside each other in conflicts close to home and further afield.
 
(But I'd want to read the full paper to be certain I haven't misunderstood this.)
Here are more excerpts:
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2.3.2. The experiment

The sample of pilots performed an experimental task in which they had to judge from their experience 48 simulated flight cases in which air anomaly occurrences (UAPs) were adjusted from two sources: 1) one source of information was empirical and consisted of the TCAS/ROSE radar record of an Airbus® jet; 2) the other source was exclusively perceptual. With this second source, the participant was told whether or not they saw the airborne anomaly—in other words, it was determined whether the pilot had direct visual contact with the UAP (this is further explained in section 2.3.3).

The simulations were set up as a role playing or science fiction game. The pilots were informed that the simulations may or may not contain UFOs (i.e., UAPs of extraterrestrial origin). The pilot's objective in this role playing was to determine whether or not they believed there was a UFO in each simulation.

[...]

After the presentation of radar images, for each simulation the participant was explicitly told whether he or she perceived visually (figuratively in the game from the aircraft cockpit) any airborne anomalies. The indication of visual perception was completely independent of the information displayed by the radar. Thus, more uncertainty was generated as to whether the anomaly in the sky was a real fact in the game if it was an anomalous perception (with no apparent magical inference).

SmartSelect_20250521-160236_Samsung Notes.jpg


[...]

Once the participant had collected all the information for each case (from the radar and from the indication of whether or not there was a visual perception of aerial anomalies) they had to answer the following question: do you declare that the alleged anomaly is a UFO? (Pilots were trained at the beginning of the experiment on the conceptual difference between UAPs and UFOs).
As it was posed as a game, pilots were subsequently given feedback on whether or not there really was a UFO in each simulation.

[...]

At the end of the 48 simulations, participant also had to globally evaluate to what degree they believed the game simulations contained UFOs. This was done with a scale from 0 to 100 (0 meant "there were no UFOs in any simulation" and 100 "there were UFOs in most simulations").
Here it is crucial to emphasize that the causal illusion occurred on two levels: 1) when the participant stated in each of the simulations that there were UFOs. The statement about whether the UAPs are UFOs or not depends exclusively on the belief in the existence of extraterrestrial beings. The radar information is there to confuse the participant and confront him with his own perceptions. So the believers in the existence of UFOs will be those who score highest in the acceptance of UFOs. 2) causal illusion was also produced in the final rating from 0 to 100 when the score was high. This is due to the logic outlined in Fig. 2 (the counts had equiprobabilities and there was no contingency between perceptions and presence or absence of UFOs). This second level was included for the purpose of obtaining a self-reported measure of beliefs and perceptions of UFOs. Anomalous perceptions without magical inference were assessed with the MMSI-2.
So the setup here is to tease out whether a specific participant is more inclined to see UFOs or not. The radar images were a distraction intended to trick a participant into seeing a connection when there wasn't one (causal illusion). People who did that wouldn't necessarily guess more UFOs unless they made magical inferences from what UFOs would do.
(Again, as far as I understood it. I know I haven't fully penetrated the jargon.)

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4.2. Aviation safety implications

Airbus® simulated radars may have a utility that is not limited only to the perception of UAPs and UFOs. Moreover, causal illusions can be a serious problem for aviation if we take into account that they are cognitive-human errors. To be more precise, it is human errors that are the main cause of most aviation accidents, either by omission or commission of faults (see Wiegmann and Shappell, 2016). The results of our research suggest that the danger of causal illusions would only be present in the case where the individual generates magical inferences about what he or she perceives.
Put another way, the UAPs themselves are not a direct problem if they do not interfere with the flight plan; the conflict and risks would appear when the UAP is interpreted by the pilot as an anomaly of extraterrestrial origin. It is this magical attribution that activates the causal illusions and would make them potentially dangerous. If we pay attention to the perceptual scales of the MMSI-2, the anomalous perceptions of pilots without magical inferences were low. In fact, the average scores place the level of anomalous perceptions well below the threshold of typical scores that could indicate clinic-pathological risk (TS > 60) [..]. Therefore, in relation to the safety issues about UAPs debated in congresses, parliaments, etc. this study provides statistical evidence that reveals what would be the epicenter of the danger associated with UAPs: the magical inferences of causality. As long as there are no magical inferences, there need not be any causal illusions and, therefore, there would be no risk associated with them.
We should keep in mind an important detail: the fact that an anomalous perception has no magical inference does not mean that it is not dangerous in itself; anomalous perceptions also have clinical risks (e.g., van Os et al., 2009). This observation about harmless (or beyond the realms of danger) UAPs was focused not so much towards anomalous perceptions, but more toward pilots' interpretation of airborne anomalies that seem to have no plausible explanation. In these cases, a magical interpretation is what would provide a real danger to flight safety, as the pilot could unconsciously make bad decisions about the state of the aircraft and the flight.
So, essentially, pilots don't really see a lot of things they can't explain (the survey said), and how much of these they see doesn't really depend on their tendency to causal illusions. But when pilots "know" about UFOs, then their tendency to jump to conclusions translates to a tendency to see UFOs. And these false inferences might lead them to react inappropriately to a situation they don't understand but think they do, whereas a pilot who doesn't believe in UFOs wouldn't add anything to the situation and reacts appropriately. In other words:
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4.4. Conclusions
The conclusions that define the contributions of this study are.
1) Causal illusions predict anomalous perceptions with inferences or magical content about UFOs. In contrast, when anomalous perceptions do not present irrational or magical inferences causal attributions have no effect. Overall, causal illusions produced by pilots predict magical inferences about UFOs by 82.4%. However, the prediction of anomalous perceptions without magical inferences obtained a coefficient close to 0 from causal illusions. These estimates include control for fatigue effects and average flight hour duration.
[...]
3) Causal illusions are cognitive errors that would only be dangerous when they present magical or irrational attributions. Anomalous perceptions without magical inferences could not be predicted by causal illusions, which is not to say that they do not in themselves pose a danger, but it does imply that the causal illusion would not be an added risk in anomalous perceptions.
tl:dr UAP are not a flight safety risk; thinking you know something about them when you don't is.

Bunk is harmful.
 
tl:dr UAP are not a flight safety risk; thinking you know something about them when you don't is.

Bunk is harmful.
So @Mendel - are you saying this: People (including pilots) who believe in things that don't exist are more likely to be wrong than people who only believe in things that are proven to exist. The decisions they make and actions they take based on these beliefs may not be optimal for situation. But the distinction is that it is not the things they see that are the hazard, it is their erroneous beliefs. ????
 
So @Mendel - are you saying this: People (including pilots) who believe in things that don't exist are more likely to be wrong than people who only believe in things that are proven to exist.
I think that's an overgeneralisation.
If you equate "believe in things that don't exist" with "magical inference" and "likely to be wrong" with "causal illusions", then that seems to be the wrong way around?
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Fig. 4. Theoretical model that allows the predicting of anomalous perceptions and the perception of having sighted UFOs in the experiment trials. Regression coefficients standardized with asterisks were significant. The latent variables of the model were adjusted according to the MMSI-2 theoretical model [..].
You can "be wrong" for a number of reasons, depending on flight duration, fatigue, where you are on the psychosis scale, etc. But you're only wrong about UFOs if you also believe in them. (But if you believe in them but have low causal illusions, you're not often wrong about UFOs.)
The decisions they make and actions they take based on these beliefs may not be optimal for situation. But the distinction is that it is not the things they see that are the hazard, it is their erroneous beliefs. ????
Yes.
Basically, when pilots look through the windscreen and see a light, they're more likely to react badly if they believe the light is a UFO, because they then infer that there's an object outside they could collide with. Pilots who don't make that inference would first find out whether that light is actually out there, and if so, how far away etc. They're not going to do an emergency descent if they hear from ATC they don't see anything on the radar.
A pilot is only going to do that if they "know" that UFOs are invisible to radar, and thus the "object" they see out there is as well (another magical inference).

The light is not the hazard.
If the light was an object that is also a radar anomaly, then that would be a hazard. But that object only exists in the pilot's mind, as a result of magical inference.
That means while the light (e.g. squid boats) triggered the hazard, it's really the pilot's belief that creates the danger.

Otherwise, we'd have to say that Venus and squid boats are dangers to aviation! I feel that'd be a bit of a stretch, given the vertical separation. ;)
 
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One seldom sees a better *lack* of correlation between reality and perception/reporting. That's almost mendelian in its numerical perfection (and 3:1 too!).

Were I being flippant, I might summarise it as "Loonies gonna loon, no matter what's out there.".

tl:dr UAP are not a flight safety risk; thinking you know something about them when you don't is.

Bunk is harmful.

It's the people who are harmful, don't blame the bunk. That's like blaming concentrated chemicals, or cars, or guns. FIlter out the people who can't filter out the bunk (can't follow lab protocols, can't drive, can't uphold trigger discipline (or can't aim)), and you're good, or at least way less bad.
 
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One seldom sees a better *lack* of correlation between reality and perception/reporting. That's almost mendelian in its numerical perfection (and 3:1 too!).
What they actually mean is this:
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Visual perception reporting was fixed relative to the game's correct response template. The correct answers determined whether or not there was a UFO in each of the simulations. Therefore, the template of correct responses was set from a contingency table relating visual perception (yes or no) to the presence or absence of UFOs. The table counts followed the model proposed by Blanco et al. (2013); this means that mathematically they had equiprobabilities (odds ratio = 1). This information is shown in Fig. 2. The fixation criterion in Fig. 2 justified the production of causal illusions because there was no contingency between eye contact and the presence or absence of UFOs.
There's actually no connection between seeing a UAP and there being a UFO (both are independently 75% likely), but because it happens together often, it invites the creation of a causal illusion.

That is also supported by their reference:
External Quote:
Blanco, F., Matute, H., Vadillo, M., 2013. Interactive effects of the probability of the cue and the probability of the outcome on the overestimation of null contingency. Learn. Behav. 41 (4), 333–340. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-013-0108-8.
Article:

Abstract

Overestimations of null contingencies between a cue, C, and an outcome, O, are widely reported effects that can arise for multiple reasons. For instance, a high probability of the cue, P(C), and a high probability of the outcome, P(O), are conditions that promote such overestimations. In two experiments, participants were asked to judge the contingency between a cue and an outcome. Both P(C) and P(O) were given extreme values (high and low) in a factorial design, while maintaining the contingency between the two events at zero. While we were able to observe main effects of the probability of each event, our experiments showed that the cue- and outcome-density biases interacted such that a high probability of the two stimuli enhanced the overestimation beyond the effects observed when only one of the two events was frequent. This evidence can be used to better understand certain societal issues, such as belief in pseudoscience, that can be the result of overestimations of null contingencies in high-P(C) or high-P(O) situations.

The cue- and outcome-density effects have been proposed as being responsible for many real-life superstitions, illusions, and irrational beliefs in which people perceive a causal relation between two events that do not covary and are not causally related. More specifically, the combination of a high P(C) and a high P(O) has been described as the condition that promotes stronger illusions of causality (e.g., Matute et al., 2011). Consider, for instance, the belief in bogus medicine such as homeopathy: Usually, this erroneous belief appears when treating mild diseases with high chances of spontaneous relief—that is, high P(O)—and when the medicine has no side effects, so that patients can self-administer the medicine very often—that is, high P(C).
 
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What they actually mean is this:
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Visual perception reporting was fixed relative to the game's correct response template. The correct answers determined whether or not there was a UFO in each of the simulations. Therefore, the template of correct responses was set from a contingency table relating visual perception (yes or no) to the presence or absence of UFOs. The table counts followed the model proposed by Blanco et al. (2013); this means that mathematically they had equiprobabilities (odds ratio = 1).

Erm, that's precisely why I said there is a lack of correlation. Why are you trying to explain to me the stats that I've already explained?
 
They have finally published a paper on the expedition and the "Tear in the Sky"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042125000259
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Abstract

In July 2021, faculty from the UAlbany Department of Physics participated in a week-long field expedition with the organization UAPx to collect data on UAPs in Avalon, California, located on Catalina Island, and nearby. This paper reviews both the hardware and software techniques which this collaboration employed, and contains a frank discussion of the successes and failures, with a section about how to apply lessons learned to future expeditions. Both observable-light and infrared cameras were deployed, as well as sensors for other (non-EM) emissions. A pixel-subtraction method was augmented with other similarly simple methods to provide initial identification of objects in the sky and/or the sea crossing the cameras' fields of view. The first results will be presented based upon approximately one hour in total of triggered visible/night-vision-mode video and over 600 h of untriggered (far) IR video recorded, as well as 55 h of (background) radiation measurements. Following multiple explanatory resolutions of several ambiguities that were potentially anomalous at first, we focus on the primary remaining ambiguity captured at approximately 4am Pacific Time on Friday, July 16: a dark spot in the visible/near-IR camera possibly coincident with ionizing radiation that has so far resisted prosaic explanation. We conclude with quantitative suggestions (3–5σ rules) for serious researchers in the still-maligned field of hard-science-based UAP studies, with an ultimate goal of identifying UAPs without confirmation bias toward mundane/speculative conclusions.
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7. Conclusion

UAPx mounted an expedition in July of 2021 to a (suspected) UAP hot-spot with UAlbany SUNY physicists. Exotic ideas like UAP radiation were entertained, balanced by a strenuous pursuit of skepticism. With one possible exception, ambiguous observations ended up being identifiable. At this point, none can be classified as true anomalies, although further study of remaining ambiguities may alter this conclusion. The greatest successes from this work included equipment stress-testing in the field and creation of new software of broad applicability, the only one of its kind for IR to the best of the authors' knowledge, fusing human-driven QA with interpretable AI/ML, not relying mainly on one or the other, for UAP work. Our valuable lessons apply to any future field work, conducted by us, our contemporaries, or future scientists.
We recommend at least two of each type of sensor, and 2+ distinct sensor types. The most significant new recommendations made for this growing field were those for establishing quantitative rigor in the definition of ambiguities vs. anomalies. Our results so far are best labeled "null", but science's history teaches us the value of such results [93], and of robust eliminative deduction. Any new excursions, to Catalina for reproducibility, and/or elsewhere (such as to Yakima [94], [95]), must include improvements to equipment/methods, recognizing others' past work.
Conclusion: we found nothing but please keep giving us money.

But honestly good for them for actually concluding null results instead of reaching really hard to say they have something.
 
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